Mutant Mudds developer further explains his position on the 3DS and piracy
1/5/13 6:45pm
Earlier this week, Renegade Kid co-founder and Mutant Mudds creator Jools Watsham had written a post on his personal blog about the 3DS and his concerns about the potential of a rise in 3DS piracy. Watsham said even went as far to say, “If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games."
The blog entry would spark a heated debate on the subject of piracy in not only the comment section of the blog itself, but also the comment threads of the news outlets that picked it up. Now that things have cooled off a bit, Watsham has decided to further explain his position on the 3DS and the possibility of hackers manipulating it for the purposes of piracy, while also clearing up a few misconceptions about what he said.
Watsham feels some people got the impression that his blog was an attack against or even an ultimatum addressed to Nintendo. He says this couldn’t be further from the truth.
"I have always been a huge supporter of Nintendo, the Nintendo DS, and the Nintendo 3DS. If you have followed my vlogs, blogs, and tweets over the past 6 years you will know this.”
“I wrote this: ‘If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games.’ This does not mean I am taking a stand against piracy. This does not mean I am taking my business elsewhere in an action of protest.”
"What this means is if we cannot make money from developing games we can no longer develop games. That is what can happen if piracy gets bad. If enough people choose to illegally obtain copies of my games for free instead of paying for them, it directly affects my business and my home."
Watsham also said piracy will exist on the 3DS and he accepts it as a reality and while there isn’t a solution to piracy, he believes healthy businesses can be maintained in the gaming industry, even with the existence of illegal downloads. It’s discovering how to keep these businesses healthy that’s key.
“I don't think there is a solution to piracy. It will always exist in some form. We just need to make sure the price of games is affordable. We need to make it easy to buy and own games. The availability and access player's have to their games needs to be at least as easy and convenient as the ROM sites make it to illegally download a game file. Ideally, it should be better. If the player's only question is, "buy or not buy?", and not dealing with issues such as, "how do I transfer ownership of this game to my new system?" then we'll have minimized the appeal of piracy.”
He concluded by saying that Renegade Kid will be releasing games for the 3DS through to 2014 and one of which is Mutant Mudds 2 (yay!).
I think Jools pretty much hit the nail on the head with this post. Although, I don’t know if piracy’s appeal can be minimized per se. After all, free is always going to be a very appealing option. But making legal transactions/downloads easier and more convenient, while at the same time making customers feel appreciated, is certainly the best way to compete against it.
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g1 DISCUSSIONS
samiqalab
best4industries best4industries Compaq International is committed to provide the highest quality power cable accessories. The company with it's ShrinkFit trademark stands leader in India and overseas market.
Mcgunn
Here's the effects of ROMs: Over 12 million sales of the Super Mario Advance series (re-releases of old Mario games available to emulate with a few mouse clicks and a google search) does the MM dev consider that lack of advertising and perhaps negative first reactions to video and screen shots might be a biggest contributor to reduced sales? There is no device on the market that is not cracked. Never has been, never will be.
Don't get me wrong, I think Indie Devs need all the support they can get, and I think that pirating software is wrong. But, in my opinion, supporting the chaotic free flow of information over InterNaziNet would probably garner better results than publicly complaining. To me, the best way to sell an indie game is with a free download and a donate button. Maybe have a nice piece of merch that comes with a purchased copy in addition, I know musicians have tried this model with AMAZING results, I wonder if GameDevs have too?
Kenshiro3
If the guy is so worried about Piracy & won't support any platform where its easy & prevalent... why did he release the game on GoG? I'm not saying gog is a pirate haven... Its just that it has NO COPY PROTECTION WHATSOEVER! They are without a doubt THE easiest to pirate.
blackmaniac
but then again, those are old games. Although one funny thing happened when I told someone that I actually paid money for UT99 (twice actually, lost the disc). He said "Wow, you're the first person I know who owns a legal copy of that game." My reply was pretty simple: "Yeah, I could've looked for it on a warez site, but 3 dollars on gog.com? Why not buy it legally?" This was way more convenient for me, than finding a site to pirate.
Kenshiro3
no not really. I was Talking about him putting Mutant Mudds on GoG. A LOT of GoG's Catalogue is now new games/Indie games along with some big name recent titles. BTW Same hereI LOVE GoG and support them. Just wish they would get System Shock 1 & 2 off of EA :)
Kayz1mega
The only reason I would want the 3ds hacked is to buy and play import games. My friends and I did that for years with the Ds and the psp since they aren't region locked but now nope. The only way now is if we can get a japanese 3Ds which costs more since its imported and some of these games don't come out over here in the US. If Ace attorney 5 doesn't come out here I'll probably have to import it.
djluke_1993
yeah same here, Thats what i did when i had my Wii i hacked that because it was region locked and games i wanted to play came out in America, Europe and not Australia which made me hack it and download the games.
Kayz1mega
Yeah same here when Tatsunoko vs capcom was coming out in japan I didn't think we get it. My friend imported it and we played it on his wii which was hacked to play region free games.
Kaepora22
I know it upset me at first for the reason that piracy is everywhere. You can't stop it and he made that clear this time around. Good for him.
Kaibaman41
Likewise Kaepora22....i too was pissed at what he wrote originally as well....atleast he is being civil about things